Editorial Articles

Social media updates, email newsletters, promotions and vouchers for subscribers’ favourite shops and services and other marketing emails that consumers actually want are increasingly going missing.

Our bi-annual European Email Deliverability Benchmark Report found one in eight marketing emails requested by consumers from companies go missing completely – neither in subscribers’ spam folders nor inboxes, but blocked by ISPs before reaching them – compared to one in nine in December 2009. The study also found that one sixth of the emails consumers actually want now go undelivered, either going missing completely or falling into spam folders.

In the UK alone more than one in seven marketing emails fails to reach subscribers’ inboxes. But the DMA UK National Client Email Marketing Survey 2010 shows that while marketers are concerned about deliverability, they still aren’t paying attention to where their emails are going. Many simply rely on the “sent minus bounced equals delivered” formula for email marketing performance, when their primary concern should be the number of emails actually reaching the inbox and being read by their subscribers. Marketers must understand that they themselves have the most influence over their email deliverability by following best practice.

The report also shows that ISPs are strengthening their defences against spam, which is having a consequent adverse impact on legitimate marketing emails. Marketing mails sent to consumers using UK ISP Demon went missing more than with any other European ISP. More than one quarter of the emails sent to Demon’s customers (27 per cent) failed to reach their inboxes or spam folders. One fifth of the marketing emails sent to BT Internet customers (19 per cent) reached spam folders and just three quarters (74 per cent) reached their inboxes.

Around 98 per cent of all email is spam. ISPs have to weed through this mass of irrelevant email to differentiate between messages they should deliver to their customers’ inboxes and messages they should protect their customers from.

These best practice tips will enable marketers to get more of their emails read by their subscribers:

1. Demand accurate metrics - Marketers must monitor their email campaign performance or demand accurate metrics from their email broadcast providers to understand how many emails are actually being delivered to inboxes, going missing completely or ending up in the spam folder. Only then can they begin fixing their email reputation, which governs whether an email is routed to the inbox, the spam folder or to oblivion.

2. Target customers with relevant emails – Showing value to subscribers is absolutely necessary and that requires a clear-cut strategy for doing so, rather than a make-it-up-as-you-go approach

3. Give consumers an opt-out – Allowing the opportunity to unsubscribe naturally and easily limits the chances of subscribers complaining to their ISP about the emails they receive and reporting the message as spam, one of the main reasons ISPs will block senders’ future emails

4. Use win-back campaigns – A cheap and easy way of bringing consumers back to the brand, re-engaging with them and extending the value from their subscription lifespan

5. Clean-up sender lists – Senders who generate high volumes of bounce backs – or just one spam trap – risk having their messages blocked by ISPs, thus damaging their email reputation

ISPs’ intensifying battle against spam is seeing more marketing emails mistakenly pegged as junk. To avoid becoming friendly fire casualties of ISPs important work marketers must ensure they track exactly where their emails are going and implement best practice to get their emails read by consumers.

Margaret Farmakis
Senior Director of Response Consulting, Return Path